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Dream Tropes Wiki/Bowdlerise
To Bowdlerise means to alter existing programs, plays, etc. so they are less rude and/or offensive. Commonly, this takes the form of swapping "curse" words for euphemisms. The term is used in a negative sense, by those who think the alterations are often done with a ridiculously high fear of lawsuits and/or need for political correctness. Sometimes it's understandable—different countries have different standards, and sometimes all it takes to change a show from something for teens to suitable for kids is the removal of a few swear words, darn it. Others are fairly reasonable for broadcast (editing out blood splatter, the careful clipping of a scene where a character is riddled by bullet holes). But true Bowdlerizing starts when you actually lower the quality of the art or story in some way in the editing, sometimes as little as spoiling jokes or perhaps making villains not look quite as evil, but escalating to damaging the plot, making dialogue confusing, and making heroes look pure and shiny. And at its very "best", it can make a situation less acceptable. In many cases (such as the airing of R- and NC-17-rated films on broadcast television or the release of sexual, violent or edgy material in countries where such things are known to be forbidden), the viewer/listener/reader is often left wondering why a release in such a venue was even attempted. Censorship starts at editing out blood splatter and profanity. But it escalates pretty quickly. Beer may become water even when it's adults drinking—even villainous adults. Cigarettes and cigars might be removed even though it's a bad guy smoking. A six-round revolver can become a water gun or slingshot. Then they start warping entire characters to entire show so that a character is Ambiguously Bi, as if a good guy being gay might encourage kids to be gay—when ironically a good guy being bi might just encourage a kid to experiment. Then when a situation presents itself where death should be a given, it's always avoided or explained away, removing the idea of consequences stemming from dangerous activities. A girl hits a boy because he got her dirty, instead of because he might be groping her. A scene of a parent hitting their child is completely removed, making it look like they are running away over nothing. If they really can't remove a death, they might try to remove emotional depth from it, so somebody doesn't seem to grieve that much over their best friend/lover dying — so now you're encouraged to stifle your emotions. Other emotional conversations may be edited, so characters seem to be friends rather than in love. Vital discussions might be removed because they take place in a bar, leaving plotholes. And at its most extreme, there may be the removal of entire episodes, and you might never even get to see the final season of your show because it's Darker and Edgier. Named after Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), who first did it on The Bible and William Shakespeare's plays; for instance, changing Ophelia's drowning from suicide to accident. It's worth noting that Bowdler himself created his "Family Shakespeare" versions as a way to introduce Shakespeare's plays to audiences who would otherwise be barred from experiencing them at all, and actively encouraged people to seek out the originals. Sadly, this cannot be said of most modern Bowdlerisers. Before him, the French Duke of Montausier published "ad usum Delphini" versions of works for the Dauphin (heir apparent) of France. "Ad usum Delphini" is now a synonym of this trope. Cultural Translation can often contain elements of Bowdlerization. See T-Word Euphemism for a mild form of bowdlerization. See also Cut-and-Paste Translation (which specifically refers to Bowdlerization in translated works and refers more to the final product than the process) and Disneyfication (which generally goes further, in not only removing content, but adding new, "kid-friendly" content). See Bluenose Bowdlerizer for when it happens here on the wiki. The inverse of this trope is American Kirby Is Hardcore. Yet another related trope is Bleached Underpants, where a creator self-censors his work to appeal to a broader audience. There is also a Censored Title, for when a work seems to be Bowdlerized, but only the title is for marketing purposes. Tropes which often or always arise from Bowdlerisation include: *Abridged for Children: If works are edited to remove material unsuitable for minors, though it's just one reason why that trope may occur. *Adaptational Modesty: An adaptation makes a character's usual dress sense much less revealing than in the original, or tones down or cuts incidents involving characters being naked or partially-clad. *Black Blood and Made of Bologna: Covering up extreme gore and blood through digital editing or redrawing the carnage so it's less shocking. *Clean Dub Name *Digital Bikini: Using digital editing to add clothes to naked people or to make someone's clothes less revealing. Can be used in conjunction with Family-Friendly Stripper, though it has also been used in conjunction with bath and shower scenes (at least when Cartoon Network aired anime), hot springs episodes, or any scene of half-naked characters in a locker room-type setting (both animated and live-action). *Edited for Syndication: Most of the bowdlerization does occur after a TV show is put into syndication or makes its rounds on the international market. *Family-Friendly Firearms: Replacing realistic weapons with more fantastic or less lethal (often silly, in the case of One Piece) ones. *Family-Friendly Stripper: Strip clubs and other sex establishments have the workers in relatively "innocent" skimpy clothes (usually a bikini) rather than being naked, topless, or in some kind of overt fetish costume. *Frothy Mugs of Water: Replacing alcohol with non-alcoholic drinks (usually juice, soda, or water) and hand-waving the drunken behavior as "acting crazy" or "being a jerk". *George Lucas Altered Version: The creator of a work making excessive revisions to it since its original release, usually to update and upgrade special effects, but sometimes to bowdlerise too. *Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Replacing sensitive words with their "safer" variants ("damn" to "darn", "hell" to "heck", "ass" to "butt" or "rear", etc). Witch with a Capital B is the same thing, only it focuses on toning down the word "bitch". *Never Say "Die": Characters can't mention anything about death and the afterlife because it may be too upsetting; even ghosts might be seen as too creepy for kids. In many cases, the word "kill" can never be used, even if it's in a comedic context. *No Smoking: Characters can't enjoy a cigarette (be it tobacco — or, in more extreme cases, cannabis, crack cocaine or meth), lest more impressionable viewers imitate what they see. *No Swastikas: Removing offensive imagery (usually swastikas or anything having to do with Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime). *Orwellian Retcon *Positive Discrimination: The villain or Butt-Monkey can't be a member of a race, ethnic group, religion, or social class that has historically been persecuted. Even when the group the hated character represents hasn't been persecuted, this trope may still come into play if the group the character represents wields a lot of power in society and threatens a boycott of the work. (However, if a character becomes a villain because of persecution, that's usually okay to show.) *She's a Man in Japan, Get Back in the Closet, and Hide Your Lesbians: Changing a homosexual or transgender character into a heterosexual or cisgender character (and turning their gay or lesbian relationships into heterosexual ones) for less tolerant audiences. *Spared by the Adaptation: Not necessarily Bowdlerisation, but can be if the result is to make the body count of an originally violent work significantly lower, or zero. *Too Soon: Editing, delaying, or banning something (mostly TV shows and movies) due to the plot being similar to a real-life current event that may be considered to be done in poor taste. "Funny Aneurysm" Moment is similar, but only applies to past media that somehow "predicts" future bad events. *Translation with an Agenda *We All Live in America: This involves the removal of what Carl Macek called "ethnic gesture". It might be as subtle as obscuring onscreen kanji characters or changing the names of people and places. The story may also be said to be set in an ambiguous location that is never named but clearly everyone speaks English. Taken to extremes, the dubbed script is filled with American pop culture references that were not in the original. Scenes of uniquely Japanese (or at least Eastern) conventions are edited out such as Shinto temples, eating of traditional Japanese food such as ramen and sushi, Pachinko parlors, the board games Shoji and Go, or the Tokyo tower. Anime & Manga * Contrary to popular belief, after Fox Kids failed to sanitize The Slayers for television, Central Park Media went ahead with a censored dub of said series that was broadcast in some international markets. The dragon slave chant was re-recorded by to remove the reference to blood, the violence was censored to almost 4Kids-esque levels ( was hired to do the job, they tended to recolor the blood blue), and all the swears were redubbed into either comical safe-for-children's-television euphemisms or the standard Gosh Dang It to Heck equivalents. * The Arabic dub of Sailor Moon. First off, the girls' legs have been recolored to make it look like they are wearing stockings. Next, the Sailor Starlights (women who disguised themselves as men on Earth and revert to their female form when transformed), as with the Italian dub, are now men who call their twin sisters from their home planet to take their place in battle. * The infamously bloody and gory Chaosic Rune ran in Banushen Comics in El Kadsre in 2004-2005, with an English translation that was toned down to the point where it felt like a kid-friendly Abridged Series and with all the blood and gore and nudity redrawn to cartoonish Made of Bologna insides and Digital Bikinis. Doesn't help that the translation was written by David Howard, the English voice of Anpanman, who has a tendency of lampshading stuff or just plain playing it for laughs when he gets to translate a project. And this magazine ran the original Crayon Shin-chan manga uncensored. * BTV Me and ETVKK air Funimation's edited dub of Dragon Ball Super to avoid this trope. * ViZ Media produced a "family-friendly" version of their Sailor Moon redub (Viz also has released versions of their Sailor Moon DVD's that feature this edited dub, which are marked with a sticker reading "This Anime Has Been Edited For Family Viewing"). This is notable since Toei and Naoko Takeuchi had to approve of most of the editing Viz did for this broadcast version (one of these was the approval of -based Synergy Animation being used to help reanimate some scenes, a la the U.S. dub of the 2005 Doraemon anime). Edits include: ** Gosh Dang It to Heck is in full effect. ** The dub ping-pongs between Never Say "Die" (One villain who said "If you continue to resist, your friend is going to die a lot sooner" in the regular version of the ViZ dub instead says "If you continue to resist, your friend will perish quickly and painfully" in the edited version of the ViZ dub, and in another episode, Sailor Moon says "What's with you, don't you care if your friend gets hurt?" instead of "What's with you, don't you care if your friend dies?") and allowing death to be shown and/or talked of (the final two episodes of Season 1, wherein the other Sailor Guardians died for a bit). ** Fish-Eye's sexuality is never spoken of, thus making him Ambiguously Gay. Viz struggled with Naoko to determine how to family-friendly-ize Fish-Eye, ranging from keeping him female as with the Cloverway dub or just never say what his gender is. They finally settled on making him Ambiguously Gay. Zoisite was kept gay and Sailors Uranus and Neptune's relationship was intact though (in what some otakus viewed as a blatant attempt to cash in on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and it's Cast Full of Gay). ** The episodes where Usagi gets drunk have her getting "sick" as a sort of Call-Back to the DiC dub. ** Suprisingly, the scene where Sailor Mercury trips and Sailor Jupiter blushes at her backside was left intact. ** Rei's grandfather is no longer perverted, and the warning for girls to look out for a dirty old man in the neighborhood in the magazine is now an ad for health tonics sold at the dojo. ** When Chibiusa is introduced in Sailor Moon R, her introductory scene had her holding Usagi at gunpoint with a gun (a toy one that fires suction cup flower things) for a good chunk of it. In the TV edit, it's been redrawn into a miniature 1990's Super Soaker of all things. And instead of shooting out said suction cup flower things, it soaks Usagi with water. ** Makoto says in one episodes that she should get a certain role in a play because she has the largest breasts; so in the edited version of the ViZ dub they also did a Call-Back to the DiC dub by changing it to her "having the best talent." ** The transformation sequences had the outlines of the girls' breasts and buttocks painted out. ** Johnny Yong Bosch was replaced as Artemis with Mr. Lawrence (some test audiences (mainly comprised of children and their families with a few Moonies from both side of the "which dub is better" aisle thrown in for good measure) for the family-friendly version thought Johnny didn't suit Artemis). Sandy Fox was also replaced as Chibiusa with Cassandra Lee Morris (for similar reasons). And yes, Naoko had to approve of these recasts too. * Recent American releases of the Akazukin Chacha anime redrew the cloud goulem Pikapon pilots in episode 71 to look less like Ultraman. * all Tasanalan (and even releases and even Disney Channel Tasanala airing) and Huntarian airings of all Tamagotchi! animes had removed Kunoitchi's mask (revealing Kunoitchi's mouth) due to Ninja's hood and mask being banned in Tasanala and Huntaria. ** it even removed Gozarutchi's mask (and even Kashiratchi's mask and Okugatatchi's hood) so Tasanalan and Huntarian airing is most hated by many Gaueses and many Tamagotchi fans (outside Huntaria and Tasanala). Comic Books * Early El Kadsreian printings of Beano comics (starting in the mid-1950's) removed almost all British slang, replacing it with North American slang (such as changing "carpark" to "parking lot"). Didn't help that the new text was very obviously made using a typewriter, as opposed to the hand-drawn letters used in the original versions and the other comics featured in each issue. Since circa 1988, they have been left unchanged. Film Live-Action * El Kadsreian law bans child actors from swearing, so when Kindergarten Cop was released there, one infamous line was turned into this: :: Kid: Boys have a banana, girls have a donut! ** The El Kadsreian TV airings of Bingo did this too for another infamous line (the theatrical release shortened it to "Suck 'em Bingo!"): ::: Chuckie: Holy heck, suck 'em Bingo! * The El Kadsreian cut of the remake of The Parent Trap censored the part where Hailey pierces Annie's ears with a nail. In this version, it shows Annie holding Hailey's ears, trying to make the decision. Then it cuts to the outside of their cabin with the audio of the scene playing through. Once the scene has passed, we cut back to Annie with her ears pierced. ** Also, recent airings on ETVKK change all mentions of wine to non-alcoholic cocktails. * El Kadsreian TV airings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show mute all the swears, censor nudity with obviously digitally-painted-on-clothing, and cut every single instance of gore. This version was also released on VHS in the U.S. in the mid-1990's with a sticker on the box reading "This Version Altered for Family Viewing". * The ETVKK version of Saturday Night Fever used in the 2000's was Frankenstein-d from the original R-rated version, the PG-rated version, and the 1980 ABC television cut. For 2018, they made a new edit, which combines the 2017 4K director's cut and the PG-rated version. * ETVKK produced an family-friendly, edited version of Demolition Man of all films. And yes, they used the edited European version with Pizza Hut instead of Taco Bell. * Whenever The Green Mile is aired on El TV Kadsre 1, they replace Del's electric chair execution with a commercial break and cut all the gore, thus making it's status as a Stephen King novel adaptation pointless. * Unli Life, has censored version (which includes, refer "Whiskey" as "Apple Juice" (due to original version encourages kids to drink Whiskey, which has Alcohol), removing Gunshot sounds, removing Japanese army scenes completely, removes Victoria chopping Chicken scene and cuts Virgina death scene) that airs on multiple children channels (such as Cartoon Network, Minimax and Tupi Kids). Animation * Recent ETVKK airings of Oliver and Company cut Jenny feeding ice cream and Cocoa Krispies to Oliver. It's as if the censors at ETVKK went on TVTropes, saw the page image for Artistic License – Animal Care, and decided "Now we cut it." * The El Kadsreian release of The Simpsons Movie altered the scene where Bart skateboards nude. The part where his genitalia shows through a bare space in a hedge was edited so that the film freezes on the last frame prior to it being shown (with the audio playing through) and then jumps back into motion once the part has ended. The "bountiful p****" scene (when Bart slams into the window of the restaurant that Ned and his sons just so happen to be praying at) was altered to erase his genitalia and turn it into Barbie Doll Anatomy, and with remarks made by Ned afterwards cut. Music * The album cover to 's album "Slam" depicts the end of the world, however Kadsreius Shintoists consider anything to do with the end of the world to be verboten. As a result, an alternate cover was prepared for El Kadsre, where the religion is very prominent, instead featuring a head-on car collision (some stores simply imported the album from the States but sold it in a brown paper sleeve to hide the album art). Live-Action TV * An episode of Orange is the New Black had an entire scene wherein two characters talk about (and badmouth) furries and bronies cut on the El TV Kadsre 3 airing. Netflix admitted they did the edit, as El TV Kadsre views furries and bronies as bullying targets thanks to internet troll culture and has insulting those two fandoms blacklisted from shows they produce or air. ** it even cutted on Netflix in Bairan and Ringia due to furries are banned in latter countries. * Many older shows El TV Kadsre and Banushen have on their archival streaming service have had Take Thats to Michael Jackson cut or muted out of respect since his death. The South Park episode "The Jeffersons" has never been reran since his death as well, and according to Trey Parker, the digital master file in El TV Kadsre's master control system has a .txt file attached to it that reads "DO NOT TRANSMIT." ** An example comes from an episode of Almost Live!: a skit parodying Lifetime Movies of the Week had a entire mock phone call from M.J. replaced with white noise. Western Animation Since Kantasy series (and Kuboian cartoons in general) have a lot of examples, they will need their own page. *The Maddox Show often edits out racial stereotypes from the first 10 seasons. Real Life * Maddoxia often edits out old memorabilia with the Battle flag on it. Category:Tropes Category:Dream Fiction Wiki